


Éponine

by deppvillage



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 15:14:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3386405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deppvillage/pseuds/deppvillage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Javert meets his child Éponine years after his wife's death and after he had given her away as a baby. He takes Éponine with him because it looks like a reasonable thing to do. But is it really the right decision?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Éponine

**Author's Note:**

> I got the idea from a friend and decided to write a story about it. It picks up at a scene in the movie and invalidates the rest of it of course.

The tavern is as bright as day and the sound of hundreds of voices is floating through the air. There’s laughter and talks and screams and whispers and in the middle of that stands a little girl all alone. Her small hand holds the even smaller hand of a puppet and a blue cap, sizes too big, covers her ears and reveals streaks of brown hair hanging over her shoulders.  
A bright smile lightens up her face and with big eyes she absorbs everything happening in the tavern. Nobody cares about her, but everybody is aware of her existence and the role she plays in all that mess.  
She is the daughter of the two people running the tavern and caring for every guest under their roof. And she is the one that knows that she is respected and loved under the amount of people. She is not like the other ones and she is especially not like the other children, or better: the other child that can be seen, hiding under a table.  
The girl’s streaky, blonde hair covers her eyes and her hands and legs are covered with dirt, the small piece of clothes is hardly enough to keep her little body warm. And even though she enjoys the shelter of the tavern it is visible that she is the one working and suffering out in the cold. Her name is Cosette and the reason she lives in the tavern is for the work she performs and for a series of unhappy events.  
But she is as important in here as she is for the tavern’s guests. It’s the other child that gets all the attention and it is obvious that she knows. Her nose high and the big smile on her face, she walks through the tavern, presenting her pride and her happiness.  
Being lost in her own world and being kept away from all that is not for her eyes to see, she doesn’t notice the heated discussion on the doorstep of her home. Her little puppet in her arms and the heart full of joy she keeps on playing as usual in the parlor of the tavern, running around the guest’s feet and thrilling everyone with the joy in her face. And without noticing it, her whole life is changed in a second. In just a heartbeat the maid that has so often been the object comparable to the family’s pet is taken away by a stranger and in another heartbeat the whole situation turns against her favor.  
It is the other man that has appeared in front of the wooden door, sitting on the back of a horse, his blue police hat reaches high into the night sky and for the little girl, that has now noticed the arrival of unusual strangers in the tavern, he appears as a giant.  
Carefully she sneaks through the crowd, hiding behind legs of guests, to get a better view of the man on the doorstep.  
His dark voice echoes through the room and the child can hear that he is talking with her parents. She is too young to understand that the business in which she has been growing up is not the one to present to the law, so the curiosity is her only motivation to get closer to the scenery.  
  
“Where’s the child Cosette?“  
  
His harsh voice immediately catches the girl’s attention and she sneaks even closer.  
She can see her parents, mumbling words, and helping each other with excuses and she can see the man’s big hands, holding the reins of the black horse he is sitting on.  
The man Éponine is studying so carefully is famously known as Inspector Javert. He is the most dutiful and devoted police man to be found in Paris, and the one claimed to put his job before his personal life. In other words: You would not want to catch his eye.  
The man’s character traits are openly visible in his face to everyone that pays a little attention. His nose, looking more like something that was accidentally placed in his face, his small lips that are tightly pressed together, his small, bright blue eyes are narrowed to slits and feel like a hundred needles on your skin when he focuses you, and the deep lines on his forehead and under his eyes, clearly express the anger and frustration in his life and tell of many sleepless nights, hunting criminals.  
But Éponine doesn’t know of all that, she is not familiar with the law system around the suburbs of Paris, where her story is just about to begin. All that brought the man on the doorstep to her attention is this feeling in her heart that she knows him, deep inside. Of course she could not explain that feeling, not to anybody simply because no one would understand her. But it is there, she is certain of that and her eyes get wider and wider while they capture every detail about the big man on his horse glowing in the light that comes out of the tavern.  
She is captivated by his appearance and would stand in stupor even longer if the man’s eyes weren’t moving and spotting her in that moment. For a second there’s a spark in them and his face opens up as if he had found out the reason of life but that look is soon gone for the angry, desperate expression that can always be seen on his face.  
Éponine sees the man straightening his back and tensing up but she doesn’t know how to react, how to think about what she has just seen. But there would not even be time for that because suddenly the man starts moving and climbs down from the back of his horse, his eyes still in contact with Éponine’s. He slowly walks towards her, step by step and no one hinders him of that although Éponine could see the confusion in her parent’s eyes if she stopped looking at the man for a second.  
But she doesn’t and the stranger comes nearer, walking in her direction, his eyes staring at her. His mouth opens and his dark voice breaks the spell.  
  
“Éponine?“


End file.
